Popul Vuh in Outline

Welcome to a myth “in outline,” one way this course will present book-length myths in ways that preserve the story and reduce the word count. We’ll use bullet points to cover the major parts of the plot following a context section that provides points of interest and background information helpful to follow the story.

Context

• The Popul Vuh is the creation story of the Mayan or Quiche people of what is today Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, and to a lesser extent Honduras.
• Only one copy survives of the Popul Vuh, written in both Quiche and Spanish using European letters.
• The myth is organized into the following five parts, with the first four serving as a chiasm. This means that if someone wants to read the story in an order that makes more sense to western readers, they should read parts 1 and 4, then 2 and 3.
  • Part 1: The world is created, and recreated, until the current form is established.
  • Part 2: The Hero Twins, named Hunahpu and Xbalanque, are born and begin their adventures.
  • Part 3: The Hero Twins then descend into the underworld, Xibalba, to defeat the lords of death.
  • Part 4: Humans are created to inhabit the new world, and find their way to Tulan where they create civilization.
  • Part 5: This section is an addendum or appendix cataloguing later kings, dynasties, and traditions.
• Because the Popul Vuh was originally an oral text and only written down after the arrival of the Spanish conquistadores, there are elements in the text which mimic elements of Christian texts. However, the text still stands on its own as a uniquely Mesoamerican myth. For example, the opening line of the Popul Vuh is, “This is the beginning of the ancient word,” which mimics the New Testament’s John 1:1 (“In the beginning was the Word”), but the story diverges sharply from there.
• Many of the names of the characters in the Popul Vuh include numbers (such as One Death and Seven Macaw), which is an indication of how ingrained Mayans’ advanced mathematics were in their society.
• Tulan, the city to which the Quiche ancestors travel, is often identified as Tollan, a real place; its ruins today are in Mexico and can be visited. It is also sometimes identified as Tulum, which is also a real place with excavated ruins.
• Because the chiasm is at the macro level, the first four parts of the myth will be summarized here in the order they appear. The fifth part is omitted as it deals primarily with ancillary material.

Part 1: The World is Created, and the First Humans Fail

• Part 1 begins with an introduction stating that what follows is ancient and must be preserved now that the colonists have arrived and preach Christianity. There is no longer a place where this story may be told. Those who read this account now have a hidden identity.
• In the beginning there was only the sky with the water pooled below. There is only the Plumed Serpent, the Feathered Serpent many call Quetzalcoatl, and Heart of Sky, who is three gods called Hurricane, Newborn Thunderbolt, and Sudden Thunderbolt.
• These gods joined their thoughts and words and they conceived humanity in their thoughts, who could give them praise if they are created. The Plumed Serpent and Heart of Sky decreed then the water be drained and the platform of the earth arise.
• The mountains are separated from the water, the mountain plain is made, the animals of the mountains are constructed as guardians of the forests: deer, birds, pumas, jaguars, serpents, rattlesnakes, and others are created as guardians of the bushes. But the sun did not yet rise.
• The animals are commanded to speak and sing out the praises of the gods, but the only squawked, chattered, and howled. In response, the gods change their word: the animals now will serve as flesh to be eaten by the ones yet to be made who will praise the gods—humans.
• And so the gods experimented and created humans. They used mud to make a body, but it did not look good to them—the human would simply crumble and disintegrate. It could not see, and it talked senselessly.
• So the gods planned again, and Quetzalcoatl and Heart of Sky invoked other gods to help them: Xpiyacoc, the Grandmother of Day, and Xmucane, Grandmother of Light. The next race of humans were created from wood.
• But these humans had nothing in their hearts and minds, and just walked wherever they would without remembering Heart of Sky. These humans were decreed to be destroyed by a great flood, and it was done. Those humans who survived became the monkeys in the trees.
• [To be continued, in Part 4.]

Part 2: The Hero Twins Defeat Seven Macaw and His Children

• The Hero Twins, Hunahpu and Xbalanque, are born. Their mother is Blood Moon, but they have two fathers: One Hunahpu and Seven Hunahpu each father each twin. Their grandparents are none other than Xpiyacoc and Xmucane from Part 1.
• Both sons become players of the Mesamerican ball game, which uses a rubber ball (a Native American invention), and frequently hunt using blowguns.
• Heart of Sky is now bothered by Seven Macaw, who is arrogantly claiming to be both the sun and the moon. Heart of Sky commissions the Hero Twins to kill Seven Macaw as retribution.
• Hunahpu and Xbalanque try to kill him with a blowgun but fail; Seven Macaw steals Hunahpu’s arm. The Twins’ grandparents, Xpiyacoc and Xmucane, trick Seven Macaw into losing his power, and retrieve the missing arm for Hunahpu.
• Hunahpu and Xbalanque go on to destroy Seven Macaw’s son, Xipacna, because of his own powers and arrogance.
• When Heart of Sky sends the Hero Twins against Earthquake, the second son of Seven Macaw who is bragging his is superior to the sun, Hunahpu and Xbalanque trick Earthquake into eating a bird coated in gypsum. The gypsum renders Earthquake powerless, and the Hero Twins bury their opponent.

Part 3: The Hero Twins Defeat the Lords of Xibalba, the Underworld

• The lords of Xibalba, named One Death and Seven Death, invite the Hero Twins’ fathers, One Hunahpu and Seven Hunahpu, to play ball in Xibalba. This is a ruse: the lords are very affronted by the noise created by the Twins and intend to destroy them.
• The fathers accept the invitation and travel to Xibalba, suffering from many obstacles en route. When they arrive, One Death and Seven Death force them to undergo several tests. The most severe of these tests involves the One Hunahpu and Seven Hunahpu being killed. They are buried together, save the head of One Hunahpu which is put in a tree by the road.
• The tree by the road then sprouds One Hunahpu’s head as a fruit. When Blood Moon sees the head, it spits into her and proclaims to live on through her. The children born of this union are the Hero Twins, Hunahpu and Xbalanque.
• The Hero Twins make it their turn to travel to Xibalba to face off against One Death and Seven Death. They avoid the traps suffered by their fathers and survive each of the traps set by the lords of Xibalba thanks to the twins’ trickery.
• Finally, One Death and Seven Death kill the brothers by trapping them in a stone oven. The brothers’ bones are thrown into a river, which the brothers had requested if they should ever die. To the Xibalbans’ surprise, the river caused the brothers to reconstruct and live again.
• This gains them the admiration of One Death and Seven Death, who demand their own participation to show they have the same powers as Hunahpu and Xbalanque. But the death of One Death and Seven Death becomes the Hero Twins’ victory.
• Hunahpu and Xbalanque go on to reconstruct their father and return with him and other unjustly killed souls to the overworld.

Part 4: The Final Humans are Created, and Journey through Tulan

• [Continued from Part 1]
• The gods gathered again to create humans, using white corn, yellow corn, and water. The water became blood, and the corn was ground. Grease was used to congeal the cornmeal, which became human fat, and four men were sculpted into being. They were named Jaguare Quitze, Jaguar Night, Not Right Now, and Dark Jaguar.
• These humans were good, handsome, and saw perfectly, knowing everything under the sky on account of their perfect eyesight. Their knowledge became intense.
• Threatened by the knowledge the humans had, realizing the humans would be as gods if they continued as they were, on behalf of the gods Heart of Sky marred their vision. Now humans would be beneath the gods in stature and ability, and could only see clarity close up. So it was that humans lost understanding and knowledge of everything.
• Then the wives of the four humans were come into being:
  • Red Sea Turtle was the wife of Jaguar Quitze.
  • Prawn House was the wife of Jaguar Night.
  • Water Hummingbird was the wife of Not Right Now.
  • Macaw House was the wife of Dark Jaguar.
• This is the root of the Quiche or Mayan people. As other peoples and tribes came into being, the first Quiche began their journey. They carried their gods (that is, statues of the gods) with them in backpacks. The sun had not yet risen.
• Eventually, the Quiche gained word of a citadel, and they journeyed there. This was at Tulan. As they removed their gods from their backpacks, Tohil a god of fire, was taken out of a Jaguar Quitze’s backpack.
• As other tribes arrived in Tulan, their languages were changed and they became differentiated and could no longer understand one another. This caused them to break apart. Many tribes departed for other lands.
• Those who remained in Tulan were struck with cold because there was no fire. Worried they would not survive, the Quiche appealed to Tohil, who granted them fire; and as other tribes asked for fire, they only received it if they accepted Quiche lordship and Tohil as their god.
• As the people worshiped Tohil, they sacrificed to Tohil by giving “their blood, their gore, their sides, their underarms.” This caused many people to leave Tulan.
• Finally, the Quiche themselves left Tulan, giving thanks to Tohil by bleeding their ears for him as they left.
• As they wandered, the Quiche rejoiced as the sun finally rose. The earth dried out, and the Quiche remained victorious over and over again as they met other wandering tribes. They remained faithful to the gods, providing the demanded blood sacrifice as they wandered and as they defeated other wanderers.
• As the four ancestor-couples of the Quiche felt the end of life coming upon them, they passed on the ancient word to their descendants, telling them they would soon return to their own tribal place when they died.
• To this day, the Quiche gather to give honor to their ancestor-couples, on the mountain where they died and disappeared forever.

To cite this reading, use the following format:

“Popul Vuh in Outline.” Colorado Community College System, 2023.